


Of ties and friendships

by TimesBeingWhatTheyAre



Series: Growing Up (and the ways it hurts) [5]
Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Male-Female Friendship, Season 7 Spoilers, Self Harm, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre/pseuds/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre
Summary: “Everything I’ve done since I broke up with Quinn has been…a cry for help.”What if Barney wasn't telling them everything?
Relationships: Lily Aldrin & Barney Stinson, Lily Aldrin/Marshall Eriksen
Series: Growing Up (and the ways it hurts) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772482
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79





	Of ties and friendships

Barney wasn’t the kind of guy to admit it, but he was a bit of a mess.

Sure, he was going out every night and finding girls to have sex with. To anyone on the outside, it seemed obvious that he was completely over Quinn and what she had represented to him, and even though his friends knew him a little better, they still didn’t understand.

They never did.

So he would hang out with them at bars, tell them his usual crass stories and hit on the chicks at the bar. Ted and Robin would laugh (Lily and Marshall weren’t around all that often still), and Barney would lie back in over-exaggerated smugness and pretend that all was right with the world.

Eventually, Ted and Robin would leave. Ted was still loving the freedom of living on his own, and Barney couldn’t bring himself to visit Quinn’s old place, and Robin still held too many pieces of his guarded heart for Barney to comfortably visit her alone.

She didn’t know it yet. Barney kind of hoped she’d never catch on, because he really did hate himself for ruining the great friendship they had going.

Besides, if he were to begin hooking up with Robin, she’d probably insist on leaving the lights on, and honestly that wasn’t a thing that Barney was that into at the moment. His suits were his armour, but they’d also become a convenient cover for old habits, ones that he’d thought he’d left behind years ago.

The thing was, that back when Barney had been starting out, he really did enjoy living a meaningless life. He’d had a fantastic time for a few years, but then it had stopped being quite so awesome, and started to become…empty.

He’d met Ted and the gang after a while, and the true friendship he’d found had helped to give his life meaning again, but by the time Robin joined them, it was clear that none of them really understood him. They accepted him at face value for years, and as much as Barney liked to pretend, there was little of the real him kept on his sleeve.

It had taken until the bus accident for anyone to really accept otherwise.

As much as he loved Ted, Barney had to admit that Lily was really the person in the group who knew him best. She was open, and accepting, and Barney rarely found that in a friend. He still wouldn’t ever have told her, but she came by alone when he was in the hospital.

_“Hey Barney!” Lily squealed, skipping into the room to where Barney lay in the hospital bed._

_“Lily?” Barney asked groggily, forcing his eyes open from the deep sleep he’d been in. “What’re you doing here? It’s like…6 in the morning,”_

_“Sorry, I just wanted to come along before school starts. I feel like I haven’t seen you lately, what with Ted and all…” Lily smiled guiltily, her eyes honest, and Barney felt a spike of hurt at the mention of Ted._

_“Right,” he mumbled, trying to turn away and failing when it hurt too much, and simply turning his head away instead._

_“Barney? What’s wrong?” she asked, and Barney quirked his lips into some facsimile of a smile._

_“It’s nothing….”_

_“No it’s not, tell me,” Lily pushed, and Barney swallowed roughly._

_“Well…I just don’t like that you’re only my friend when Ted says it’s okay. I thought- I thought we were friends too,” he whispered, closing his eyes and pretending like they weren’t glossy with tears._

_“Oh Barney,” Lily sighed, leaning over to give him a hug, then moving back to cup his face in her hands. “I’m really sorry…Ted was just so annoyed, and I thought it would only make things worse if I hung out with you,”_

_“I just felt a bit- alone,” Barney admitted, biting his lip hard and wishing he could move his arm to scrub away the tear that trickled down his cheek. One arm was securely attached to his apparatus so he instinctively tried to move the other one, but it snagged on the covers and he winced, relaxing it gently._

_“Barney…” Lily repeated, her soft eyes now filled with tears as well, but suddenly her tone changed. “Wait, what’s that?”_

_“What’s what?” Barney asked, still quite out of it due to his medications, and Lily frowned down at him, reaching out and carefully grabbing his arm. He froze up, and tried to resist her when she tried to flip it over, but he was still too weak._

_“Oh no…that’s not…” Lily gasped, her fingers clutched around Barney’s pale wrist as she stared down at it in horror._

_“Not what? That’s- just from the bus accident,” Barney grinned, pretending as though his heart wasn’t thudding through his veins._

_“Barney Stinson, don’t you lie to me,” Lily growled, staring him straight in the eyes. “Is this really from the bus?”_

_“Yes,” Barney replied without hesitation, and Lily gave him a disappointed look, her lip trembling._

_“You know I can’t believe that. I’m a trained teacher, Barney, I know the signs,” Lily told him, and Barney sighed, his façade crumbling._

_“I’m sorry Lily…” he trailed off, not able to meet her eyes. “I was just…alone,”_

_“You come to me next time, do you hear?” Lily demanded, and Barney looked down at the sheets instead of responding._

_“Barney, you come to me,” Lily insisted, and Barney finally glanced up to meet her eyes, gaze flickering away again after a few moments._

_“Lily I don’t know if I can promise that,” he’d said honestly, and she worked hard to keep her expression angry instead of devastated._

_“Well- I’ll give you a tie. You wear that tie if- if you’ve made a mistake and done something bad, or are thinking of doing something bad. If you’re wearing that tie, I promise that I will be there for you,” she told him, and Barney nodded once, blinking rapidly to stop any more tears falling._

_“But- can you please not tell the others? I can’t have them knowing,” Barney begged Lily, and she clasped his hand tightly, and agreed._

_She bought him the tie on the day he left the hospital. She told the others it was a ‘going home’ present, but she and Barney both knew the truth._

_And it was the best present he could have asked for._

Barney had worn the tie when he needed to, when he felt a bit like he was being swallowed up by the awesome lifestyle Barney Stinson had to have, and Lily had been a woman of her word. Each time she had found an excuse to talk to him in private, and when times were particularly bad, she would clean his wounds and stick plasters on them, and make some food for them, just the two.

Even after she and Marshall married, Lily kept her word.

Until she had Marvin.

Lily was so happy to be back with her friends again, even though it wasn’t as frequent as before, and they had a baby with them now, that she hadn’t thought about how Barney was doing.

Her own life had been pretty hectic for the past few months, and so whilst she had comforted Barney a little over his breakup with Quinn, most of the time that she had spent with the gang was still a lot of catching up.

And so it took her almost a week to notice the tie.

Lily had just been fussing over Marvin, passing him back over to Marshall when she had glanced up to where Barney sat opposite, scotch comfortably in hand and bright smile on his face. He seemed to be looking over towards the girls at the bar, dressed as impeccably as always, but there was just something about the tie that Lily vaguely recalled, something that she was missing…

“-And then Rover’s real owner called,” Robin was laughing as she told a story, and Lily shook her head, putting Barney’s odd clothing choices out of her mind for the moment. Robin did tell a good story. “Barney was all like ‘no, I’m fine, let’s go take Rover back’ and then guess what he did,”

“What?” Ted asked with a responding grin, and Barney scowled at the pair of them.

“He took off his jacket and tried to jump off the balcony!” Robin grinned, and Barney shifted uncomfortably, giving Robin a smile that Lily recognised as being slightly too wide to be real, and crossed his arms.

“Come on Robin, I’m not that dramatic,” he laughed awkwardly, but neither Ted nor Robin seemed to notice. Ted seemed particularly caught up in Robin’s story, or perhaps the memory of Rover wearing clothes, but Barney drained his scotch in one drink before joining back in.

Lily frowned at him from across the table, whilst beside her Marshall was now trying to catch up with the story. Barney was dramatic, but that seemed a little over the top, even for him.

And it was then that she recognised the tie.

It was one of Barney’s red ones, red with a dark stripe criss-crossing over the pattern, and the reason she recognised it was because she had bought it.

Oh god. It was the tie that they used as a signal.

He couldn’t have been wearing it long, right?

Lily was suddenly horrified by Robin’s story of Barney trying to jump off her balcony as she remembered the first time she’d ever even thought of the tie, back in the hospital, and how terrifying the sight of the thin little lines on Barney’s wrist had been. How pale he’d looked in the bed.

“Hey Barney, will you help me get the drinks? And maybe a snack?” Lily asked suddenly, smiling at Barney as he jolted out of his thoughts and looked back at her.

“Sure,” he shrugged, and they slid out of the stall, walking over to the bar, and then Lily grabbed his hand and dragged him outside, to the steps outside their apartment.

“Barney, are you okay?” she asked him, more gently than the journey to the stairs had implied, and Barney looked startled as he stared back at her.

“Yeah, I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be,” he scoffed, and Lily sat down on the stairs slowly, patting the step next to her for Barney to take a seat.

“Because that voice is your lying voice, and Robin just said you tried to jump off her balcony,” Lily said bluntly, and Barney shifted again.

“Pff, she’s exaggerating. I just didn’t want Rover to go,” Barney lied, but the red-head could see his hands begin to tremble in his lap.

“Barney, I am so sorry that I haven’t been here for you these past months,” Lily apologised sincerely, shuffling up next to him and laying a gentle hand on his arm. “You must have been going through a lot, and I didn’t notice,”

“It wasn’t over an 8, don’t worry,” Barney grinned, stiff under her touch, and Lily grabbed his cheek, forcing him to face her so that she could see the turmoil of emotion in his eyes.

“I think it might have been,” she said softly, and Barney bowed his head, shaking a little more.

“It’s fine. I’m fine-“ he tried to reassure her, his voice breaking off part way through as his hands came up to clutch at his arms a bit desperately.

Lily looked at her friend in sorrow and guilt, leaning into him properly and hugging him until his face was hidden in her shoulder and he began to cry in earnest, unravelling under her gentle touch.

“Oh Barney, it’s going to be okay. I’m sorry about you and Quinn, but you are still the awesomest friend I have,” Lily said to him quietly, stroking his hair maternally, and he nestled closer into the touch. She glared at anyone who dared to look at them as they walked past the odd scene, and she let Barney cry for a few minutes.

“Hey Barney, I don’t want to upset you any more but… I need to see them,” she told him, soft but firm, and he nodded once, refusing to look up in embarrassment.

“Can we- go inside?” he asked quietly, his voice a little hoarse, and Lily smiled in the disarming way she had.

“Of course,” she said, pulling him carefully upright and pulling the key out of her pocket and gesturing Barney inside. She grabbed her phone too and sent Marshall a quick text to say that they’d popped around the corner for some snacks, and not to expect them back for a little bit.

Barney settled on a corner of the sofa once inside, and she closed the door behind them, walking over to the kitchen and grabbing the first aid kit and a small bowl of water.

She walked over to the sofa with them, placing the supplies on the table before looking back at Barney.

“Okay, jacket off honey. You know the routine,” Lily said, busying herself with opening the medical bag and taking out the antiseptic wipes and the plasters. Barney was unlikely to have done anything properly himself.

Once the jacket was off, Barney seemed reluctant to move any more, so it was Lily who carefully undid the buttons on his shirt sleeve and pulled the fabric back with a gasp at how many cuts there were on his arm. She did the same to the other, and looked up at Barney with sympathy.

“Oh Barney…” she sighed, and he closed his eyes, yet another tear escaping to run silently down his cheeks. His arms were a bit of a horror show, worse even than after his and Robin’s breakup, and Lily couldn’t believe that she’d been so caught up in her own life that she’d managed to completely miss this.

She was only grateful that at least all of the cuts were horizontal.

Lily set to work, wiping away the slight smears of blood from the newer ones, and using the antiseptic on all of them, before forgoing the plasters in favour of a bandage that wrapped over Barney’s entire forearm, hiding his pain from view.

“There,” she said quietly, and smiled up at Barney, lifting his bandaged arms up towards her, one after the other, and laying a gentle kiss on each one. He smiled back weakly, his frame still rocking with the sobs he’d been repressing whilst she worked, and Lily moved the things aside to sit next to Barney properly and hug him again, the two of them warm and comfortable on the sofa.

Normally, they’d return to the others after their chats, or make up a proper excuse for leaving, but this was worse than it had been before, and Lily didn’t want to make Barney pretend everything was alright again. At least not for a bit longer.

“Hey, I’m just going to grab a blanket from my room,” she said to Barney, and he nodded in reply. She walked across to her and Marshall’s room, nabbing the thick blanket from the corner, and opened up her phone to call Marshall.

“Hey babe, where’d you go?” Marshall picked up immediately, and Lily felt her lips curl into a smile at his warm voice.

“Hey Marshall, Barney and I are in the apartment. I think we’re just going to watch a bit of TV, so don’t worry about us, okay?” she told him, and her husband replied easily.

“Sure honey. See you soon,”

“Love you,” Lily replied in a slight whisper.

“Love you too,” Marshall said, and hung up the phone. Lily hoisted the blanket up and walked back out the room, settling it down on hers and Barney’s laps, snuggling into his thin frame and creating a little cocoon for them.

“Thanks Lils,” Barney said after a while, and Lily smiled up at him.

“It’s the least I can do, Barney. No more of this ‘8’ nonsense, you hear me?” she ordered, nestling into him more and pulling her arms tightly around him, his bandaged arms hidden under the fluffy blanket.

“It’s good to have you back,” Barney said, and Lily knew he meant it.

And when Marshall came back in, a few hours later, he found his wife and Barney snuggled up fast asleep on the sofa. Another man might have been jealous or annoyed, but he couldn’t muster up anything negative about the situation, not with how cute Lily was when she slept, and not when he spotted the tell-tale streaks of tears on Barney’s pale face.

Instead, he tucked them in tighter, and went to put Marvin into his cot for the night (or at least a couple hours).

And the next day, Barney swapped his tie.


End file.
